The epic party is an event that is also a fantasy. It’s a mainstay of Hollywood stories—from Cinderella to Sisters to Stranger Things, from most of the teen movies of the ’80s to many of the family sitcoms of the ’90s—in part because parties are fun, but also because parties, when they’re especially Epic, promise a kind of exceptionalism. Getting blackout drunk? Confessing your feelings to your crush? Table-dancing, lampshade-wearing, Benes-ing? Do whatever you want! the epic party offers. It won’t count! the epic party insists. The epic party is international waters, basically, only the “waters,” in this case, consist of tequila.
Now, with Office Christmas Party, the Epic Party fantasy has been taken to its logical—and inevitable—conclusion: Here is a movie that doesn’t merely involve such an event, but that fully revolves around it. The premise is this: Clay Vanstone (T.J. Miller), along with his friend and second-in-command, Josh Parker (Jason Bateman), run a branch of ZenoTek, a company that manufactures servers and other pieces of internet hardware. Things aren’t going well at the company’s Chicago branch—at least, not according to Carol (Jennifer Aniston), Clay’s sister and ZenoTek’s CEO, who is cold and tough and looking for ways to spite her caring-but-also-carefree brother. Carol will shutter the branch—and cut the jobs of the hundreds of people who work for it—unless Clay can get a big contract with a potential client, Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance). The only way to win Walter’s business, it turns out? To show him the time of his life. Enter ZenoTek’s “bitch-ass Christmas party.”